


Imposter

by Lumieres



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-19 00:00:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9408461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lumieres/pseuds/Lumieres
Summary: “Pidge,” Keith sighs. “It’s not your fault. None of it is.”These words feel out of place on his lips. He shouldn’t be saying this. Shiro should be saying this.Keith isn’t a leader.(Or: Keith tries to take over Shiro’s role as leader to varying success. )





	

**Author's Note:**

> something short, wanted to write something kind of angsty because I miss writing Keith's POV. End of season two-ish. Spoilers. unbeta'd

_Knowledge or death_.

The words still ring in his mind as he holds the blade in between his fingers. He lifts it up, balancing it in the palm of his hand. In comparison to his bayard, this feels different, energy hums through it. It almost feels ethereal.

It’s become habit now to look at the blade each morning he wakes up, to wonder if today is the day he’ll have to use it. He’s hoping that the day he needs to use this is the day that he gets Shiro back.

“ _Shiro_ ,” Keith whispers, his voice barely audible. Sleep comes so rarely now, often riddled with even more nightmares than he had before. He’ll wake up screaming in cold sweat, shouting Shiro’s name just as he finds him.

Then the hazy memory of the dream will waft away and he’ll be faced with the harsh reality. He notices the emptiness of the corridors and the fact that no one really walks this side of the castle anymore. All the routines, the way they all fit into each other’s spaces, it's now shattered forever. Because Shiro's not there anymore.

And sometimes, the fear encompasses him in those moments of solitude. It grips him like a vice, tearing apart his soul. All of his fears had come true in those few seconds. Shiro is gone again. 

He grabs the glass of water on his bedside table and he drinks it slowly. He’s been trying to do everything a little more slowly, a little more deliberately.

It’s what Shiro would have wanted.

Closing his eyes, he sucks in deep breaths. But he never asked for this. He never asked to lose Shiro without a single clue to his whereabouts, he never asked for —

 _Stop it,_ Keith thinks to himself. His fingers trace across the Galra blade. It doesn’t feel quite like his but it would have to do. Two weapons, he thinks, is better than none. He places it on his bed and leaves the room, trying his best to stay as neutral as possible.

His feet falls rhythmically on the metal floor of the castle and when he passes Shiro’s room, he stops. Lightly, he raps the back of his fingers against the metal, hoping that this is all some stupid dream, hoping that Shiro is still there.

He’s already lost him once.

He can’t lose him again.

Swallowing the heat that rises through his throat, he looks down at his feet, letting out a watery breath. There are footsteps that echo around him and he has to turn away to recompose himself.

“We all miss him,” Allura says.

Keith turns to face her, nodding. “We’ll find him. We _will_.”

Allura laughs a little, but it catches on her throat. “You almost sound like him.”

Those little reminders make Keith wince.

 

* * *

 

                                                                                                 

It’s been eight days since Shiro’s disappearance. On the first day, after the moment of confusion, they all were determined to track him down. But as the days drag on like the hour hand of a clock, weariness runs rampant among the group.

With one member gone, they’re all broken and disjointed. The cogs refuse to turn as slickly as they did before.

Keith’s about to take a seat in his old chair when Hunk shouts, “Uh, Keith. That’s not where you sit anymore.”

Raising his gaze a little, shock gracing his expression, he shakes his head and nods. Slowly, he walks towards Shiro’s chair and takes a seat.

He can’t help but feel like an imposter, posing, pretending to be something he isn’t. Everything doesn’t _feel_ right. But Keith still sits there, at everyone’s suggestion.

“You managed to pilot the _black_ _lion_ , Keith,” Pidge says, nudging their glasses up their face. “It has to mean something.”

Surprisingly, for the first time, Lance says, “Buddy, you’re the only one of us who has the skills he does. Or who even matches his piloting.”

Keith knows that he’s even better. He’s good at fast range, things that require fast reflexes. Shiro’s good at plenty of other things. Like leading a team.

Keith can’t answer them though, he can only stare forward because he fears his words are going to come out jumbled. He puts on a warrior face, turmoil brooding behind a neutral expression. He wants to shout at them, _he’s not dead_ , _he’s still out there_.

_I shouldn’t be sitting in this seat._

But they all think that, but they still need a leader.

For the time being, that leader is going to be Keith.

“It’s all yours,” Hunk says, gesturing in half a circle. “Own it buddy!”

Keith’s jaw hardens.

So he’ll have to wear that mask — one that he can’t quite figure out how to use — and make the decisions that he’s so used to Shiro making. Part of him is glad that a lot of them don’t ever mean _life_ or _death_ , now that they’ve mostly defeated Zarkon. But he does humour the thought, wondering how he would react, wondering how quickly he’ll make the decision.

Not all leader’s decisions are good ones. Keith knows this, they all know this.

He just hopes that he doesn’t lead them all to their deaths accidentally.

He glances at his team who are all at varying stages of fatigue behind their consoles. Pidge has the Altean equivalent of coffee right next to their hand, face paler than usual. It’s their fourth cup of the day and they have tremors that run through their hand as they use the screen.

Lance still tries to joke, still _tries_ to, but they all fall short. They don’t have the same oomph as they used to. But then again, no one has the same _oomph_ as they used to.

No one has their answers. No one knows where to even start looking for Shiro.

It’s just a black page amongst the vast emptiness of the universe, the vast void where Shiro could be _anywhere_.

“Have you got anything?” Keith asks, his voice husky from disuse. When no one answers, he prompts them, “Lance?”

“Negative,” Lance says glumly.

“Allura?”

“Sadly not.”

And the days will carry on like this until it’s become routine.

“I ran a scan of the black lion,” Pidge says one day. “At least I finally managed to. Apparently —“

Pidge’s explanation doesn’t make that much sense to Keith. He finds himself furrowing his brows, trying his best to make sense of it, but when the words general relativity and quantum spin enter the explanation he shakes his head, having to bow out almost immediately.

But at least they now have some sort of lead.

 

* * *

 

The first time Keith finds Pidge crying in their _workshop,_ as they call it, he almost doesn’t know what to do. He stops in the doorway, half wanting to run, half wanting to just not have to comfort her at all. But that isn’t what Shiro would do.

Shiro would always know what to say.

So he lightly walks beside Pidge and kneels beside them, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“Keith I’m sorry,” Pidge says, their breath heavy and their eyes red. They takes off their glasses and rubs them lightly, with a torn up smile as they try to make Keith feel better. She hiccups and takes another sip of the coffee beside her. “I’m sorry we still haven’t found him.”

“Pidge,” Keith sighs. “It’s not your fault. None of it is.”

These words feel out of place on his lips. He shouldn’t be saying this. _Shiro_ should be saying this.

He isn’t a leader.

 “I just —“ they stutter. “I just should have already tracked him down or something. I should be better than this.” Now, the tears flow and Keith awkwardly moves his arm around them. “Keith, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know what to say. He’s remembering what Shiro’s done for him, all those nights they spend together, in each other’s company — especially after Keith’s nightmares. Sometimes, just being there means a lot more to anyone than anything else.

“You should get some more sleep, though,” Keith says instead. “I’ve seen you working on this late into the night.”

Pidge slams down the coffee. “Could say the same for you. I see you in the simulation room until the early hours of the morning.”

They’ve reached an impasse, so Keith concedes. He leaves them to their work and walks out of the room.

 

 

* * *

 

The first time Keith finds Lance slightly shaky, he panics. He hardly sees him like this, all cocky, all confidence, but now the bravado’s worn away revealing the broken lines beneath.

With the light of a dying sun catching the window, Lance holds out his hand, fingers tracing the window frame.

“Keith?” Lance says, turning his head over his shoulder. “I saw you in reflection.”

Keith raises a hand up with half a wave. “Are you okay?”

“Coping,” Lance replies, uncharacteristically quiet. “I mean, as far as I can tell, we’ve somehow _defeated_ Zarkon, but we don’t have Shiro and we’re not back on earth.” Lance trails off. He looks at his hands and then he looks back up again. “I miss Shiro.” Then a little more quietly, he says, “I miss my family.”

“We’ll find Shiro,” Keith says with as much confidence as he can muster. “And then we can go home. Once we’re finished with all of this.”

“Will we ever be finished with all this?” Lance gestures around vaguely. “I mean, we thought we were done. And then Shiro disappears. What happens if Zarkon isn’t really dead? What happens if —“

“We’ll do what we have to do,” Keith says. He feels like an imposter. He’s saying this without truly believing his words.

This is all wrong.  

“You’re really taking on this leader thing well, huh?” Lance says with a wry smile. He returns his gaze back to the universe unfolding itself around him and sighs. “That tiny speck there, I think it’s earth. It has to be.”

 

 

* * *

 

Keith always finds Hunk in the kitchen now. In the past few days, Hunk has managed to create a new dish. Something inexplicable, something that Keith never knew you could with the few ingredients he’s found around the castle. Not all of them taste good, but those are generally rare occasions.

“What have you made?” Keith asks.

“Some sort of pasta equivalent with sweet, sweet, alien cheese on top,” Hunk replies, pushing it forward. “Try some.”

Keith takes a spoonful and tries to swallow. It’s dry and it scrapes down his throat, but it tastes decent. It beats the gruel he made for himself when he lived back in that hut, away from the garrison.

“Tastes great, Hunk,” Keith says, with a smile.

“You’re trying to be like him, aren’t you?” Hunk says as he takes a bite. “He always does this.”

They don’t need to say who _he_ is. They both know.

“I’m just trying to keep the team together,” Keith says — and in his head, he says, _because that’s what he’ll want._

Hunk laughs at that. It’s a proper laugh. “We’re all trying to do that, buddy.”

But it’s Allura that Keith is most worried about. She doesn’t really _cry_ , in the way that Keith doesn’t really _cry_. He’ll catch her staring off into the abyss of the galaxy, sighing loudly and turning back to her console, trying her best to scour the universe for him.

There are hardly any clues. There’s _nothing_.

And this makes him scared. He’s so, _so_ scared.  

It’s the exact same kind of trepidation and fear that he had when they crashed on that planet all those months (or was it weeks) ago. Everything spiralling out of control, mind being barely able to focus until he felt the solid ground on his feet and until he heard Shiro’s voice, seemingly a galaxy away.

“Allura,” Keith says, skirting about the edges of what he could say — what he _should_ say. “Are you okay?”

She glances back at him. “It’s my fault, I wasn’t able to stop it — I wasn’t —“

“Stop,” Keith says, loud enough for her to hear, but not loud enough for it to echo among the emptiness of the control room. “We’re not here to blame each other.”

Keith blames himself for this.

Keith blames himself for not watching Shiro.

But of course, he’s not going to tell her.

“And most of all, we’re not going to blame ourselves.” Keith eyes her. “Okay?”

“You’ve grown a lot since I first met you, Keith,” Allura says, trying to smile at him. Hesitating, she opens her mouth, as if to say something else, but her sentences are still clipped. Despite apologising for her behaviour, she is still wary of Keith. A couple of seconds later, she shakes her head to herself and walks out of the control room.

Keith looks out to the binary star system they’re orbiting and closes his eyes gently. He places a hand on the window and imagines Shiro doing the same, wherever he is. He hopes that he’s not in some sort of prison, he hopes that he’s not being tortured again.

The man’s been through enough.

Keith just wishes that it’s him who disappeared instead.

 

* * *

 

What Keith misses the most about Shiro is his touch. The small hugs, the proximity and the secret chats they have to one another in the middle of the night. It’s all there. And he misses it all.

The day they spent together on that hostile alien planet, with Keith carefully applying pressure to the wound, and Shiro delirious with pain, is one of the most vivid memories Keith has. He remembers the exact way his heart beat sporadically in his chest as he mumbled between thoughts, _he’s going to die, he’s going to die._

But of course Keith never said that aloud.

“You’re not going to die,” Keith whispered. “I’m not going to let you.”

Shiro managed to piece together a crumbling smile. “I mean it, though. I want you to lead Voltron, if anything happens to me.”

“Nothing is going to happen to you,” Keith said through gritted teeth.

“But just in case,” Shiro replied. They lapsed into silence and the blood was showing no signs of clotting. “You’ve changed so much. Since the first time I met you back at the garrison.”

He hated this proximity because it brought back so many memories. Of the garrison, of the joy they had. Of the secrets they shared. Every single bit of history that Shiro no longer remembers. But he still seems to love him, he still seems to trust him — which is good enough for Keith.

“People do that,” Keith replied. But he doesn’t say the same to Shiro. He’s changed too, ever since he was captured, with less and less being revealed about him each day. Keith wished he trusted him, opened up more.

But it’s too late now, isn’t it?  

Keith snaps out of the memory. He breathes out, hands clutching the yoke tightly. He stares at a spot on the ground until he stops seeing double. As soon as he lifts up his head, he’s greeted by worried stares.

“Are you okay, Keith?” Allura asks.

He simply nods, not trusting himself to speak. “I’m going to hit the simulations.” The simulations is still a place that he finds refuge in. It’s still a place that he haunts the most. It’s so easy to lose yourself in the routine of moving, of trying to not get hit, that he much prefers it. “Tell me if anything interesting happens.”

“Roger that, big boss,” Lance says weakly, saluting.

Keith ignores this and he pulls his jacket closer to him. The doors glide open and suddenly he’s alone again.

The first time Keith catches himself crying is at the simulator. He’s forgotten to stretch — or he doesn’t care, he’s not too sure which one it is — and he’s turned the bot on the hardest level.

Each duck, each weave is enough to _just_ dodge it.

And it reminds him of the trials so much. It reminds him of Shiro letting him lean on his shoulder and of Shiro immediately poised to stop the members of Marmora. Those movements are what make Keith’s heartache. How quickly Shiro would move protect him. And Keith will do the same.

Of course he’d do the fucking same. They’ve been through a lot together. They’ve been through _hell_ together.

He’d lay down his life for Shiro, or he’d even give up his own life just to get Shiro back.

Out of all of them, Keith thinks, he’s the one who deserves a break. He’s the one who’s been tormented by the Galra. Eight days is far too long to be alone. And soon, it’s going to be nine days. Keith swallows hard, sidestepping as he tries to swing at the bot. It learns from his movements and he’ll have to keep trying to reinvent the wheel with his movements. He’ll have to keep thinking on his feet.

This is what he likes, because sometimes, he finds it easier to make decisions when pain is the other alternative.

But it’s the slam to the back that winds him. It’s the blow to the chest that makes him cough blood and it’s the blow to the back of his neck that makes his vision split.

“Stop simulation,” Keith chokes out. He leans on the metal ground, waiting until his breath settles, waiting until his vision comes back to normal. Eyeing the blood on the ground, he quickly rubs it off with the back of his sleeve, his tongue flaring in pain.

This isn’t what a leader should be doing.

And this is what breaks him.

Hot tears burn the back of his eyes. He scrunches his hand up and slams it on the metal.

“Shiro,” he says to himself. He nuzzles his chin to his chest and bites his bottom lip. “Shiro, I miss you.”

He’s not a leader.

He can’t be a leader.

His entire body aches. Soon, he’ll be up and fighting again. He’ll fight until Allura will come in and tell him that he needs to stop, that he’s been gone for far too long, that he’ll destroy his _fragile_ human body, that only Alteans need to train for that long.

But he doesn’t care.

“Why did you fucking leave again?” Keith says to his reflection. “Why did you do it again?”

And he knows that these are stupid questions to ask. He knows that.

Because there’s no way Shiro would have left voluntarily.

There’s no way. But Keith wishes that he stayed for a little longer, instead of thrusting all leadership on him. He can’t do this. He’s _not_ a leader. He’s not used to watching everyone look to him for his final judgement, he’s not used to the way they all wait on him before they decide to do something.

He doesn’t hate it.

He just isn’t used to it.

As the pain subsides, he turns over to lie on his back, staring at the ceiling. With grim determination, he mutters, “I’ll find you again. Just like last time. I promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> I literally watched episodes back to back, so some information is sloppy. I might write more for this if I have time and inspiration. Or if I just have an idea (because pfsh, I should've been working on designs). For the time being, it's a one shot c: 
> 
> Thank you for reading!  
> 
> [ tumblr ](http://the-teacupshatters.tumblr.com/)


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